Greenprint: How we can stop the sprawl by Helena Rusak Beyond the Greenbelt, urban hotspots expand and highways multiply. Is there a cure for sprawl? Ontario Nature’s strategy for a livable landscape Picture this: You are being taken on a fantastic aerial tour of southern Ontario. As if you were sitting in an IMAX theatre, you are surrounded by sounds and images of unsurpassed size, clarity and impact. You feel yourself soaring over the landscape. This virtual experience is highly realistic, except that the narrator tells you the year is 2025: the near future. What does southern Ontario look like 20 years from now? From your vantage point in the sky, you can see rolling hills of farmland and some smaller woodlots, many of them set off in perfect squares and rectangles below. A dense network of roads and highways stretches across the landscape. The river valleys retain a slim buffer of trees and vegetation. Ironically, the sprawling cities and towns, with their irregular boundaries, have taken on a more organic form than nature has. Urban areas are the new closed canopy of southern Ontario. In the Greater Golden Horseshoe area, this is particularly evident: since 2005, 3 million more people are living and working in the region, 9 million more cars are on its roads and as much as 1,070 more square kilometres have been swallowed up by urban centres - a staggering 45 percent increase in urbanized land. Today we are at a crossroads in our planning for the future of southern Ontario. Provincial decisions made now regarding land use and urban growth will determine what kind of landscape you might fly over in 20 or 30 years. The new Greenbelt Act, which is intended to protect natural areas and agricultural lands from urban development in the Golden Horseshoe area, is a major step forward in land-use legislation. But we can do better than this - arguably, we must do better. Southern Ontario does not end with the Greater Golden Horseshoe area (bordered by Midland in the north, Fort Erie in the south, Waterloo in the west and Peterborough in the east). A bold vision for nature protection and land-use planning should allow for a system of protected natural spaces in the shape of core areas and connecting corridors throughout the southern part of the province. These green spaces should be integrated with farmlands and urban centres. Ontario Nature is pushing for a "Greenway," or greenprint, for all of southern Ontario. We cannot overstate the benefits of retaining our natural spaces. Air pollution kills 16,000 Canadians each year. In Ontario alone, smog is estimated to cost taxpayers more than $1 billion a year in increased hospital admissions, emergency department visits and lost workdays due to respiratory illnesses. A Greenway means cleaner air, clean sources of water, more wildlife habitat, better soil conservation, new recreational opportunities and a better connection to nature for Ontarians. A Greenway strategy could entail linking existing parks and natural corridors with conservation areas, significant wetlands and woodlands, and protected features such as the Niagara Escarpment, the Oak Ridges Moraine and the Great Lakes shoreline. CONSIDER: According to the Pembina Institute, $33 billion in new investments will be made over the next 25 years in water and wastewater treatment infrastructure in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Compare this to a similar situation in neighbouring New York State. New York City once received naturally pure drinking water from the Catskill Mountains. As population and development pressures grew, forests in the watershed were logged to make room for farms, housing and resorts. Gradually, sewage and agricultural runoff contaminated the water until it fell below the standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency for drinking water. Officials in New York City had a choice. They could build a filtration plant for $6 to $8 billion (U.S.) in capital costs, plus $300 million in annual maintenance costs, or, for $1 billion, they could restore the Catskills watershed to somewhere near its original purification capacity, with subsequently very low maintenance costs. The decision was easy. In 1997, the city purchased forested lands in the watershed to resume the task of natural water filtration. This was but one of the many benefits provided by preserving an important green space. On the next few pages, let us explore the possibilities for a greener landscape. This article is continued in the Summer 2005 Issue of ON NATURE. Ontario Nature’s Helena Rusak specializes in forestry issues and southern Ontario woodlands. Over the next 25 years: In the Greater Golden Horseshoe region, 1,070 square kilometres of land will be urbanized. This is almost double the area of the City of Toronto and represents a 45 percent increase in the amount of urbanized land in the region. Winfield, M. 2003. Building Sustainable Urban Communities in Ontario: Overcoming the Barriers. The Pembina Institute. The population in the Greater Golden Horseshoe area will have increased to 10.5 million (a 43 percent increase since 2000). Neptis Foundation, 2000. Of the land on which this urban growth will occur, 92 percent will be on prime agricultural land. Winfield, M. 2003. Building Sustainable Urban Communities in Ontario: Overcoming the Barriers. The Pembina Institute. Greenhouse gas emissions in new suburban areas are projected to increase by 526 percent. Winfield, M. 2003. Building Sustainable Urban Communities in Ontario: Overcoming the Barriers. The Pembina Institute. The cost of delays due to traffic congestion, principally in the 905 region surrounding Toronto, will increase from about $1 billion per year to $3.8 billion per year. Winfield, M. 2003. Building Sustainable Urban Communities in Ontario: Overcoming the Barriers. The Pembina Institute. The Donut Effect: Statistics Canada reports that “in several census metropolitan areas, the population in the core municipality is growing more slowly than in the areas around it, forming a donut. The fastest growing municipalities are in the outlying areas. Six of the top 25 fastest growing municipalities are in the Golden Horseshoe: Vaughan, Markham, Richmond Hill, Brampton, Barrie [and] Caledon.” Statistics Canada. A profile of the Canadian population: where we live. http://geodepot.statscan.ca/Diss/Highlights/Index_e.cfm Water Seventy-five percent of the water in our streams, rivers and lakes comes from the forest. Forests absorb rainwater and snowmelt and release water slowly, preventing erosion that can clog streams. Forests also filter pollutants out of water. Friesen, L.E. 1996. Forest birds in fragmented landscapes: The pressures from without. PhD Thesis, University of Waterloo, Ontario. 130 pp. A watershed is an area of land that drains into a particular body of water such as a river or lake. No matter where you live, you live in a watershed. Federation of Ontario Naturalists. 2003. Water at risk: it’s our source for life (brochure). More than 75 percent of southern Ontario’s wetlands have been lost due to draining, filling or other habitat alteration. Eighty to 90 percent of Canada’s urban wetlands have been destroyed. Friesen, L.E. 1996. Forest birds in fragmented landscapes: The pressures from without. PhD Thesis, University of Waterloo, Ontario. 130 pp. A projected $33 billion in new investments will soon be needed in the water and wastewater treatment infrastructure in the Toronto-centred region (the area from Midland to Fort Erie, Waterloo to Peterborough). Winfield, M. 2003. Building Sustainable Urban Communities in Ontario: Overcoming the Barriers. The Pembina Institute. Wildlife More than 2,535 species of breeding birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, amphibians and flowering plants inhabited Ontario several hundred years ago. More than 50 of these are now locally extinct. Still other species persist at much-reduced population levels. Riley, J., P. Mohr. 1994. The Natural Heritage of Southern Ontario’s Settled Landscapes: A review of conservation and restoration ecology for land-use and landscape planning. OMNR, Aurora. p.13. There are more than 60 endangered species in southern Ontario. Royal Ontario Museum. Date unknown. Ontario’s species at risk. rom.on.ca/ontario/risk.php. Accessed 2005 March 13. Forest birds and small mammals are more likely to travel via fencerows between woodlots than across open fields. Wegner, J.F., G. Merriam. 1979. Movements by birds and small mammals between a wood and adjoining farmland habitats. Journal of Applied Ecology 16: 349-357. Forest interior habitat species include: scarlet tanager, red bat, red squirrel, spring beauty and red trillium. Ministry of Natural Resources. 2000. Extension notes – Conserving the forest interior: a threatened wildlife habitat. Toronto: Queen’s Printer for Ontario. Wildlife can use small patches of natural habitat and fencerows as stepping stones between larger forested areas. Riley, J., P. Mohr. 1994. The Natural Heritage of Southern Ontario’s Settled Landscapes: A review of conservation and restoration ecology for land-use and landscape planning. OMNR, Aurora. p.26. Habitat connectivity is in the eye of the beholder: the woodland vole forages within 15-30 metres of its nest; a red fox may travel up to 8 kilometres per night in search of food. Cooper JL. 2000. Special animal abstract for Microtus pinetorum (woodland vole). Michigan Natural Features Inventory, Lansing MI. 2 pp. Available from http://web4.msue.msu.edu/mnfi/abstracts/zoology/Microtus_pinetorum.pdf#search='woodland%20vole%20foraging%20range'. Accessed 2005 Feb. 27. natureserve.org for red fox. Accessed 2005 Feb. 27. Trade in peregrine falcon and eastern prairie fringed-orchid – both Ontario species at risk - is controlled under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. http://www.cites.org/eng/append/appendices.shtml. Accessed 2005 Feb. 26. Fragmentation generally leads to colonization by non-native, invasive species. Meffe GK, Carroll CR. 1997. Principles of conservation biology. 2nd ed.